Well, I stopped brewing beer, and only cook for two...

August 03, 2012

A Do Nothing Congress Means a Do Nothing Country

I'm not telling you anything new when I say that we have a stalemate in Congress, largely based upon the hopes that by not supporting anything the Democrats want, and specifically by President Obama, we will have a change in the Presidency in this 2012 election cycle.

But if they fail, will they stop there? Are they willing to continue to abandon the people for another 4 years? My gut says yes.

The problem is that I'm not telling you anything new, and you aren't doing anything about it. I'm saying you because I'm doing whatever I can, so it must be you that aren't doing all that you can, and the fault falls to you.

It has become perfectly acceptable for a large portion of the electorate to turn their heads, avert their eyes, and approve of new blood being voted into Congress whose only promise is to ignore doing the job our Senators and Representatives historically have been elected to do.

One of the problems in electing our Legislative Branch representatives to do nothing means nothing gets done. The requirement is for people to understand the functions of their government, which, heretofore has been to make and execute the laws of this country. Those laws, for better or worse in the view of some, are the foundation of how our country operates, not just our government. The operation of our government by fiscal strangulation isn't just something one can ignore. We have trade agreements with other nations, we have laws that have been enacted within other agreements with nations, ratified and now part of our own law.

Our economic health is dependent upon the economic health of other countries, and in fact their economic health is dependent upon ours. Most countries not just specifically of the West, but on every continent wouldn't even have an economy without the United States.

I can't say that I'm proud of how America has handled some of their economic dealings with other countries, particularly in Africa and South/Central America, but still the financial ties exist well outside of our fair borders, and when our Congress fails to act for the good of our people, such inaction has adverse affects on many others in the world, like ripples spreading in a pond.

We have to get one thing straight. There has been a lot of big corporation agitation for Globalization, particularly over the past 15 years resulting, again, in highly intertwined economics, but remember this, it is their economy that rises and falls based on what we do, not the other way around. If our economy is doing fine, most of the countries in the world feel the effect and prosper.

A good example in today's world is Europe and the EU, where all of these countries have been having problems, largely due to an over-exuberant amount of questionable investment that pulled out of Ireland, Greece, Spain and Italy even before our economy ran aground, which was a major sign of the serious misfortune about to befall us.

And Europe is going to continue to bring down the US economic outlook if our representatives in Congress don't start learning just some of they stuff they need to know in order to bring America back further from the precipice the Republicans drove us towards during 8 years of uncontrolled spending, including Billions of dollars just going missing in Iraq alone. Somebody has the money, and it came from you and me, the taxpayers of this country.

Even John McCain, during and after the run up to the invasion of Iraq said he smelled war profiteering, and he was right. To bad we no longer have that John McCain available to us to help this country right itself.

But then, we don't have any Republicans to help us right this country and get back to full employment and prosperity. They won't help us because, as far as I can see, they don't want a black man for President, but even during the Clinton administration, when 22 million jobs were created, they fought tooth and nail to distract President Clinton from doing HIS job.

And if one looks it is easy to see that they chose the path of obstructionism, but more like a test run, charging that Clinton was supporting cronyism, supposed illegalities in the Whitewater real estate case, murdering Vince Foster, you name it. Doing anything, in fact, to slow him down from accomplishing his sworn duties as President. When that didn't result in his losing office in 1996, the Republicans sank to the depths of strict party politics and the House impeached him.

Even though the country didn't want to see the President impeached, and the Senate simply wasn't going to convict him, the Republicans were willing to throw a 22 million-job presidency under the bus, and for what? The possibility of a 1998 Congressional marjority?

They got their welfare reform. Essentially there is no longer any welfare, not only in name, but in fact. And while it is entirely possible that the economy was in motion to continue, it didn't and by the time George W. Bush was in office, we were again losing jobs as we had under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. And don't you let those talking head Republicans tell you that the greatest employment comeback was under Ronald Reagan because it wasn't. And even though the great orator was cutting taxes early in his Presidency, he had to raise taxes 11 times AND borrow money, showing Republicans how to ignore deficit spending's costs and the unproven hypothesis that tax cuts pay for themselves.

Now how does this history go towards a Do Nothing Congress? Well, to a large degree it follows the Republican mantra of no new taxes, which at a time like now doesn't help. We don't need new taxes, we need higher revenues, which means that those who can pay higher taxes should, but it shouldn't be NEW taxes, it should be well reasoned elimination of tax shelters that fits with the burden the rest of America is handling, and if there are any tax breaks for the wealthy, then the middle class should be able to take advantage of them too.

And all the above paragraph is bull just to see if you were paying attention.

There are some facts here that need to be explored. One is that we could tax all rich people at 100% and that still wouldn't pay off our debt, but most people think that means we take 100% of what they earn. No, it means what I wrote. We tax people at 100% meaning they cannot hide 50% of their income through what turn out to be subsidies to the rich or tax shelters that reduce our revenues whilst the greatest corporate and personal profitability for the 1% in our history is happening all around us.

For anyone who hasn't read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, we are in the beginning days of this coming true. So give Ayn some money (you can't, she's died even as all of her adherents just got into the White House), and buy the book. It will certainly be an eye opener.

As I said, back to the topic, but it's only going to come in drips and drabs. I will try to tie this all together and if I do you can thank my Western Civ professor. He left me (and the entire lecture hall, one presumes) wondering just what the heck he was talking about until the last minute of his class and then BOOM he brought it all together with the speed of a thunderclap. Alas, I'm probably not that good.

There is a serious problem with this new election cycle when we start hearing about Tea Party backed candidates whose only plan is to ignore the call they are supposed to feel to serve the people. I'm not certain, but if you don't get your money's worth for the fulfillment of a contract, you should be considering bringing charges of fraud, however, in today's world, and I literally mean today's world, the news is that a new Tea Party candidate has stated that he will literally do nothing in Congress if the Democrats regain power. He's told his possible constituents that he not only won't do anything, but that he won't do anything no matter what happens. He plans on spending his time taking money for speeches even as he takes money for being a House of Representatives member.

Now I don't know, but if someone tells you they are going to steal your money by not doing the job you hire them for, and you acquiesce by still hiring them, then I can't see any fraud involved at all. Perhaps this man who declines to do anything if the Democrats wins is a new type of honesty in politics, but I can't help but feel that he's being dishonest by taking the opportunity away from someone else who wants to get into the fray and do some good. In other words, to serve the people.

But I've grown up learning my ideals from my parents, even though we had different ideals at the time. I still hold that my government is not all powerful, able to break the laws of the land and hide behind secrecy when it isn't necessary. And irony breaks out in all aspects of life making one wonder just how good we are at anticipation.

After 9/11, George W. Bush went so far as to cover up 20 years of open unclassified government information by re-classifying it, and then turns around and publishes ALL of the files supposedly recovered from Saddam Hussein's trove of nuclear research for all the world to see. Even if it was mistakenly, after the whole world knew about the mistake, the information still stayed up on the Internet for two weeks.

Who is on whose side? Perhaps Bush wanted his buddies, the Saudis, to have the information, but the Saudis have us on their side, even if we do pay $750 Billion in gas purchases to the ones that attacked us on 9/11, as many Republicans continue to say.

Then the realization hits you. These guys aren't playing politics, they're playing POLITICS. To them it isn't a game, it is a way of life, a certain level of driven effort for purposes that do not help the many, but are strictly for sale to the few.

For truly, a man must have purpose, and if that purpose is to help others, then who is to tell them whom those others are? And just as surely, if they do have to help others, and they get their choice, then it is just as obvious that the lesser number of people they help means a more concentrated level of effort to help and a greater success in helping.

Therefore, ipso facto, etc., by helping as few as possible means you are more successful in your level of help than if you take on trying to help the masses, who, in the end, will fall into argument, demanding more than you can give, and then you've just wasted your time.

Who knows? This may well be a modus operandi, but it seems to be so shallow as to be impossible. And yet there is evidence to suggest that this may well happen, may, in fact, have a basis in fact.

For we have 310 million people in this country, and we have some 241 Republicans in the House of Representatives who are helping to steal these lives away.

We have some 25 million people out of work or underemployed, and yet we cannot find ONE Republican Congressman willing to help them.

We have 50 million people without health insurance, and yet we have 241 Republicans who have voted to repeal a law that will insure the majority and offer nothing in its place.

We probably have over 50 million people in poverty, and 241 Republicans that will not give them a helping hand, but rather castigate them for not looking for a job. Yes, castigate them for being lazy on the floor of the House and for everyone to read in the history of the Congressional record. These are their words, not mine.

If you add in the US Senate Republicans, we have 288 Republicans who will not help any of the 310 million Americans that aren't rich. In fact, it looks, just by the numbers themselves, that there's close to a 1 to 1 relationship between Republican legislators in Congress and the number of the people in the 1% of the wealthiest people in the country.

Who knows, there may be a corresponding set of numbers in each state, in each county, perhaps even in each township, each with their own personal Republican making certain that they are doing the job of helping only the rich, and basking the personal knowledge that they are helping exactly the right person.

And perhaps this is the reason they need not help the country, because, from what they see, everyone they are helping is doing just fine.

I don't know. I have no crystal ball, and if I did, perhaps I wouldn't know how to use it properly, so I don't depend upon things I cannot equate to others, things I cannot observe and report. By eliminating things that can only be speculation, I have to turn to the facts, and the facts tell me that a country which has duly elected representatives to do the work of the people, and yet refuse to do the work of the people, are a do nothing Congress, and the health and well being of the majority of the people of the United States are of no consequence and our system is at severe risk.

In this lack of helping the people of their own country, they are also creating a worldwide program of defeatism. By ignoring the masses here, they present what they perceive to be a paradigm of pragmatism, assuming that the people will forget that their problems began because the Republicans held abolute power and wielded it badly.

So they do nothing. Not because they can't do something, but that they don't know what to do and in doing only for the few their failure for the masses cannot be their fault.

Comments

First of all, Republicans are concerned about what the people want, not what the Democrats or this President want. If continuing to "compromise" toward bankrupting this country more quickly is not abandoning the people of this country then I don't know what is. And since you're voting for more, more, more of whatever the government does, then you certainly aren't doing anything positive for the "masses".

Doing nothing this President and this Senate wants is not only the right thing to do, the question is when the democrats will decide to listen to the people themselves. After inauguration this January, we'll have both a republican president and senate to match the house. The we'll see the dems make every obstructionist effort possible, just like the republicans are now. Will you then complain about a do nothing Congress? Doubtful. I do agree that the parties have never been so far apart and antagonistic, which appears to go back to the 2000 Bush/Gore race.

Let's see, we're spending about 22% of $3.8 Trillion on healthcare, 22% on pensions, 13% on welfare, 6% on interest, that's almost 2/3 of the budget, $2.4 trillion, "helping the masses". By the way, that's unfortunately about all that's being collected. Is spending 100% of every dollar the government collects not enough for you? What is it you want, Harry, other than to be a demagogue?

As far as you can see, it's all about Republicans not wanting a black man for President. Come on Harry, we're looking for a conservative person who has experience leading. I'd be happy with Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or Bobby Jindall--I give a flying you know what about what they look like or their sex, for that matter.

You don't think we have republicans to help right this country. That presumes the dems have a foggy notion about how to "right" this country. But what we sure as hell DO have is a president and senate focused on the power and authority of unions, illegal aliens, and collective rights of this group or that group against the filthy rich business men. And even worse, it's not because they care about those groups--let's not forget most of the dems, just like the republicans in the senate ARE the filthy rich--it's simply because they've got to pander to retain power. And this President is pander personified.

Tea party candidates' plan is not to serve the people. And what is serving the people, specifically, in your mind. You don't have clue do you? Or at least not one you'll share, since that might subject your real thoughts to analysis. Apparently it's not to improve the business environment in order to provide the masses with a job and self-esteem. As much as you hate business, it is the lifeblood of this country. You choke it with regulations, taxes and labor strings and you kill business. And then you've killed us all. But if serving the people is putting us all back in the 19th century, then your right on target, Harry Norman.

If "do nothing" is your problem, then your talking about the Senate, controlled by Harry and the other democrats. The House has passed at least 38 bills on energy, defense, workplace issues, regulatory strangulation, and healthcare that Reid hasn't even brought up for consideration and debate. Pure obstructionists. Never mind the 2012 and 2013 budgets that the dems are afraid to even put on the record.

At least our President has some political courage. He has the courage to shut down the XL pipeline so his buddy Buffet and the greens can prosper; he's ok with attempting to close legitimate Boeing facilities in right-to-work SC to leverage deals for Washington unions; he's fine with intentionally ignoring DOMA, immigration laws, stacking the NLRB with recess appointments when there is no recess, exempting unions and companies from Obamacare, and then fighting and suing states who try to enforce the law.

You cannot compromise with radicals for the sake of "statemanship". And for the life of me, I don't understand why you attempt to defend this prevarication by the President and congressman of whatever party.